In heavy sea, it might be dangerous with relatively large ships, e.g. supply boats, to go too close to men overboard drifting in the sea, because they may be pressed down into the sea by the ship side.
Most standby ships or man overboard boats operating in the areas around offshore installations such as platforms, drilling ships, etc., are equipped with the above-mentioned raisable and lowerable as well as pivotable lifting crane. In order to avoid the foregoing problem, it is known to attach a basket at the outer free end of the crane beam, so that this basket-shaped rescue means upon the occurrence of a crane beam position corresponding to a more or less swung-out beam, will be situated at a certain distance from the ship side, dependent on the angle which the crane beam forms in relation to the longitudinal direction of the ship side. If the crane beam takes a position approximately at right angles on the ship side, the rescue basket will be located at a maximum distance therefrom.
Especially in bad weather, it is difficult to operate the basket such that the man overboard in the sea gets hold of it. Moreover, it may cause problems to get into such a rescue basket, and its suspension at the outer free end of the crane beam causes restrictions in respect of its extent and, thus, capability of accommodation. In practice, one will only be capable of constructing such a rescue basket for the accommodation of only a very few people at a time, while the need for rapid rescue often will concern a substantially larger number, particularly at low sea water temperatures.